Chronicle Editor
Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter
FIRST Lady Amai Auxilia Mnangagwa’s Angel of Hope Foundation yesterday distributed sorghum seed to Twai Twai San community in Makulela, Bulilima District, Matabeleland South as it continues to reach out to marginalised minority communities through its community-based empowerment projects.
The San community is one of the poorest groups in the country due to slower integration to the broader society.
Addressing Makulela villagers, Angel of Hope Foundation project manager Ms Sheila George said Amai Mnangagwa’s dream is to uplift downtrodden communities.
“This is not the first project that First Lady through the Foundation is working with San community. We started with the nutrition garden which others ruled out that it was going to be a white elephant. But we are happy that the community has embraced the project and it has started bearing fruits. We are here once again to launch a second project, the farming inputs project.
“The First Lady, a mother to the nation is passionate about empowerment projects especially targeting marginalised communities such as yours. That is why she is bringing the farming inputs not just to you the San community but the whole village so that we all farm and produce so that no one goes hungry,” said Ms George.
She said Amai Mnangagwa will also introduce a donkey project to complement the inputs scheme.
“In this project we want you to go into groups of 20 households under a village head. We will then provide you with donkeys which you will use as draught power, use as transport to go to the nearest clinics as well as fetching water.
“The First Lady’s wish is to see each household at the end of the project having two donkeys each. This will address challenges you face in farming. She is encouraging everyone to cultivate their fields as this is the only way to end poverty,” she said.
Twai Twai village head Ms Mutjena Ncube lauded the First Lady, for the life transforming community projects.
“We had never seen such development projects targeting our community. We are so grateful to the First Lady; she might not know what she has done for us but I do. We were not farming because we did not have the inputs, we didn’t have draught power and all these things are now at our disposal. So, we will start farming, we want to send our children to school as we want to transform our lives,” said Ms Ncube.
Government through Bulilima district development coordinator Mr Nyasha Majonga said the First Lady’s development efforts were sustainable as they are needs-based.
“This is the bottom-up approach implementation of development. The projects have a community buy-in hence their chances of being sustainable are very high.
“This is a very unique community whose development requires patient understanding of what they want and need. So, I believe the First Lady made the correct assessment of their needs. We applaud her efforts and we encourage other development partners to emulate her initiatives instead of imposing projects on communities,” said Mr Majonga. — @nqotshili
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